Iran, PA Among Those Standing With Embattled Venezuelan President

Iran, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hezbollah are among those who are standing with embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as the United States insists that his presidency is illegitimate.

On Wednesday, Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly and the opposition leader to Maduro, invoked a constitutional amendment to assume the title of interim president, arguing that Maduro usurped power through an illegitimate election.

“I swear to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure an end to the usurpation,” Guaido said.

Guaido has reportedly been working with the Trump administration on a peaceful method to transition Maduro out of power.

Maduro has indicated that he will not relinquish power, accusing the United States of orchestrating a coup against him. Iran is among those echoing Maduro’s line.

“Iran supports the government and people of Venezuela against any sort of foreign intervention and any illegitimate and illegal action such as attempt to make a coup d’etat,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday morning.

The PA’s foreign ministry also announced their solidarity with the Maduro regime:

Russia has been sending war planes to Venezuela as sign of support for Maduro. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the move in a tweet:

#Russia's government has sent bombers halfway around the world to #Venezuela. The Russian and Venezuelan people should see this for what it is: two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer. pic.twitter.com/bCBGbGtaHT

The Venezuelan military has announced its support for Maduro, however Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been working with the Trump administration on the matter, is insisting that it is just the generals who are standing with Maduro:

The correct headline should be Venezuela’s generals pledge allegiance to Maduro.

The top brass & the midlevel officers & rank and file are not the same thing. These generals make lots of $ from Maduro corruption. Soldiers suffering like everyone else. https://t.co/fbUgjImsWA

According to the Jewish Policy Center (JPC), Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have a “long history of collaboration with Iran, including sanctions evasion, terror finance, and ideological subversion.”

“During the presidencies of Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Caracas was a key facilitator of Tehran’s sanctions-busting efforts,” the JPC report states. “The two regimes established business ventures and financial institutions in Venezuela, which they used to launder Iranian money, procure technology, and bribe senior Venezuelan officials.”

The report adds that Hezbollah has also been working with the Chavez and Maduro regimes, having “used South America as a base” money laundering in order to finance its terror activities.

The JPC went on to explain how Venezuela’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah stems from the Venezuelan economy being plagued by hyperinflation, prompting the Venezuelan government to turn their worthless currency into counterfeit U.S. dollars through Iran and Hezbollah’s help.

“Suffering from a self-inflicted economic disaster, Venezuela is running out of foreign currency reserves. Turning worthless currency into greenbacks helps address that problem,” the report states. “Hezbollah gets a hefty commission for the job and gains political leverage in Venezuela in exchange for its help. Iran, as the key facilitator of the Venezuela-Hezbollah connection, favors the injection of billions of counterfeit greenbacks into the global economy because such a step is damaging to the U.S. financial system.”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/world/292806/iran-pa-among-those-standing-with-embattled-venezuelan-president/Up Next

Iran Meets with Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leaders

The Iranian regime met with leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization in Tehran on Monday, where the PIJ terrorists reportedly bragged about their ability to unleash “thousands of missiles” against Israel.

Iran’s Press TV reported that the meeting included Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and PIJ Secretary General Ziad al-Nakhala. Islamic Jihad reportedly told the Iranian leaders that they and Hamas were in a prime position to launch attacks against Israel.

Iran also reportedly signaled that they and Hezbollah “will support the Palestinians in the next conflict,” indicating “a threat of launching a multi-front war against Israel,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

Khamenei also praised PIJ for what he saw as the weakening of Israel.

“During the previous two wars, the Zionist regime called for truce after 22 days on one occasion and eight days on another, but in the latest confrontation it requested a ceasefire after only 48 hours,” Khamenei said. “This means the Zionist regime has been brought to its knees.”

A senior congressional official told the Washington Free Beacon, “Iran is finding every new way to attack Israel and interfere with America’s efforts to bolster our Israeli allies.”

“One day it’s Hezbollah attack tunnels. Another day it’s drones from Syria,” the official said. “Today it’s apparently Palestinian attack tunnels. The only way this stops is if the U.S. Treasury Department and Congress finally drain them of resources.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) tweeted in response that he is leading an effort to crack down on Iran’s finances:

FILE PHOTO: A man holds a Hezbollah flag at Meis al-Jabal village in south Lebanon, December 9, 2018. REUTERS/Aziz Taher/File Photo

Congress passed a bill on Wednesday that would sanction terror groups like Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields.

The bill, titled the Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act, specifically condemns Hamas and Hezbollah for their use of civilians as human shields.

“Throughout the 2006 conflict with the State of Israel, Hezbollah forces utilized human shields to protect themselves from counterattacks by Israeli forces, including storing weapons inside civilian homes and firing rockets from inside populated civilian areas,” the bill states. “Hezbollah has rearmed to include an arsenal of over 150,000 missiles, and other destabilizing weapons provided by the Syrian and Iranian governments, which are concealed in Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, often beneath civilian infrastructure.”

The bill later adds, “It shall be the policy of the United States to consider the use of human shields by Hezbollah as a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights, to officially and publicly condemn the use of innocent civilians as human shields by Hezbollah, and to take effective action against those that engage in the grave breach of international law through the use of human shields.”

Hamas is also listed as a terror group that will be sanctioned under the bill.

The bill, which passed with bipartisan support, was originally passed by the House of Representatives in October 2017. A year later, the Senate sent back a revised bill back to the House and tacked on some amendments. The final bill passed the House on Thursday.

AIPAC, one of the key groups lobbying for the bill, praised Congress for taking “legislative action against this heinous practice” in a statement.

Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which was also involved in lobbying for the bill, also hailed the passage of the bill.

“Those who use human shields are the worst kind of cowards,” CUFI founder and chairman Pastor John Hagee said in a statement. “The practitioners of this monstrous practice hide behind the skirts of women and the bodies of children in order to attack neighboring innocent civilians.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tweeted:

Grateful to see Congress passed the “Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act.” ADL had endorsed the bill, which penalizes Hamas and Hezbollah operatives and others who help them use this illegal practice: https://t.co/kzevVPlJvD

A Shameful Jewish Silence at the U.N.

“Do not stand idly by” is a popular mantra of Jewish activists who fight injustice. Whether the injustice is genocide in Sudan or child migrants separated from their parents or Israel undermining its democracy, these activists know how to make themselves heard.

But last week, when it came time to condemn terrorism in a high-profile vote, Jewish activists fell largely silent.

There were no online petitions or demonstrations in front of the United Nations in support of a resolution to denounce the terrorist group Hamas. As expected, the General Assembly rejected a U.S.-sponsored resolution that called for an end to violence, encouraged intra-Palestinian reconciliation, and condemned terrorism.

“Over the years, the U.N. has voted to condemn Israel over 500 times . . . and not one single resolution condemning Hamas,” U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley said in response. “That, more than anything else, is a condemnation of the United Nations itself.”

“The United Nations’ sorry record on Israel and terrorism is an issue that should unite the Jews, as well as anyone who cares about justice.”

To add insult to injury, as David May wrote in National Review Online (NRO), “The U.N. indicated that Jews’ praying at the Western Wall is more worthy of condemnation than Hamas’s lobbing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians,” as the General Assembly passed another resolution calling for “an end to ‘Israel’s occupation . . . including of East Jerusalem,’ the location of Judaism’s holiest shrine.”

The fact that the U.N. is a cesspool of anti-Israel sentiment, virtually immune to any activism, is no reason not to protest. When the cause is worth it, Jewish activists have no problem fighting against the odds.

We saw them do just that a few months ago when eight Jewish organizations — T’ruah (the rabbinic call for human rights), the New Israel Fund, J-Street, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, the National Council of Jewish Women, Partners for Progressive Israel and the Union for Reform Judaism — rose up to protest Israel’s new Nation-State law.

They published an online “pledge” encouraging people to confront those who voted for the law: “Sixty-two members of Knesset voted to approve the Nation-State Law, which denigrates minorities within Israel, as well as Jews outside of Israel,” the statement read. “Take the pledge to hold these MKs to account for their vote, which threatens democracy and equality in Israel, by demanding answers from them.”

The pledge, which followed months of active protests and public condemnation, provided a list of the MKs and suggested five tough questions for them to answer.

It makes you wonder: Why can’t these warriors of justice do the same against Hamas and the United Nations? If speaking truth to power makes sense for Israel, why doesn’t it make sense for the horribly biased U.N.?

I looked on the websites of the eight Jewish groups that protested the Nation-State law and couldn’t find one statement or press release in support of the anti-terror resolution. Why is that?

“If speaking truth to power makes sense for Israel, why doesn’t it make sense for the horribly biased U.N.?”

After all, Jewish activists take special pride in standing up against discrimination and injustice. If the pathological anti-Israel bias at the U.N. doesn’t qualify as discrimination and injustice, nothing does.

And if the mission is the “search for peace,” anti-Israel bias undermines that goal.

As May writes, “By continuously condemning Israel and encouraging Palestinian maximalist demands, the U.N. harms prospects for peace. It only makes matters worse by giving terrorists such as Hamas a free pass. [The UNGA resolution] was a major test for the United Nations in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and it failed miserably.”

The U.N. does not deserve a free pass when it appeases terror groups while singling out Israel for special condemnation. If this injustice is a stain on the U.N., it’s also a stain on Jewish activists who stand idly by.

There are so many divisions in the Jewish community when it comes to Israel, we ought to pounce when we find an issue we can all agree on. The United Nations’ sorry record on Israel is an issue that should unite the Jews, as well as anyone who cares about justice.

So, here’s my simple question for Jewish activists who love to pounce on injustice: Why aren’t you pouncing on the U.N.?

https://jewishjournal.com/columnist-2/editors-note/243441/a-shameful-jewish-silence-at-the-u-n/Up Next

Israel, Hamas Reportedly Agree to Truce

Residents of southern Israel protest against their government’s decision to hold fire in Gaza in response to a similar decision by Palestinian militants, in Sderot, Israel November 13, 2018, REUTERS/ Amir Cohen

Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to an Egyptian-mediated truce after Hamas launched hundreds of rockets toward southern Israel on Nov. 12.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched more than 460 rockets into southern Israel, resulting in at least 108 Israelis wounded. Israel with 160 airstrikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Times of Israel (TOI) reports that Egypt led the ceasefire talks; Qatar, Norway and the United Nations also contributed.

“Israel maintains its right to act,” a senior Israeli official told TOI. “Requests from Hamas for a ceasefire came through four different mediators. Israel responded that the events on the ground will decide [if a ceasefire will go into effect].”

Hamas hailed the ceasefire as a bulwark against “Zionist aggression.”

“Our rockets have pounded Israel and sent a clear message: Bomb for bomb, blood for blood,” Hamas official Ismail declared. “If you attack Gaza and our people, Hamas rockets will find you everywhere, in Haifa, Jaffa, Ashkelon and Ashdod.”

Petition Calls on UCLA to Cancel NSJP Conference

A recent petition started by Stop Anti-Semitism website is calling on UCLA to cancel the upcoming National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) on Nov. 16-18 and already has tens of thousands of signatures.

The petition, titled “Help prevent the next Pittsburgh – tell UCLA to cancel SJP’s annual hate conference!”, notes that SJP founder Hatem Bazian has uttered “horrific anti-Semitic and violence-inciting statements,” such as calling for an “intifada” in the United States and that “there are large number of Zionists who were engaged with Nazi Germany.”

The petition also highlighted various anti-Semitic statements from SJP members:

Additionally, the petition points out that SJP has heaped praise upon convicted terrorists Rasmea Odeh and Leila Khaled and has ties to terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

“Because of SJP’s closed-door policy of not allowing any non-SJP students to attend the Conference, UCLA is essentially allowing SJP to continue spewing their messages of violence, Anti-Semitism, and support of known terrorists,” the petition states.

The petition proceeds to call on UCLA to cancel the conference.

“If not canceled, we call to hold UCLA accountable by investigating it for violation of anti-discrimination laws, its own policies against discrimination as were adopted by the UC Regents, and violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin (including Anti-Semitism) for federally assisted programs and activities!” the petition concludes.

As of publication time, there were more than 16,000 signatures to the petition.

UCLA issued a cease-and-desist letter to NSJP on Wednesday evening to stop using the UCLA Bruin Bear in their logo by Monday, or else the university could shut down the conference.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/241343/petition-calls-ucla-cancel-nsjp-conference/Up Next

Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal in a phone interview that the logo is “poking their finger at the eye of the UCLA administration and the UCLA community” by “co-opting the UCLA Bruin icon.”

“What does the Palestinian kite stand for today?” Cooper said. “It’s not going out with peace kites from Japan. It’s setting aloft arson terrorist kites to burn down crops and forests as they’ve done in southern Israel.”

Cooper added that Palestinian terrorists have been using explosives disguised as children’s toys in order to lure Israeli children into touching it and having it blow up in their faces.

“If this doesn’t wake up the UCLA administration to cancel the event at UCLA, then they’re going to have to deal with the consequences that the UCLA Bruin has now been hijacked by people who want to destroy Israel and are pro-terrorist,” Cooper said.

The university and NSJP have not responded to the Journal’s request for comment.

The conference is scheduled to take place on Nov. 16-18.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/241116/national-sjp-use-logo-ucla-bruin-playing-kite-conference-logo/Up Next

PayPal has stopped providing services to the British Charity War on Want over the charity’s alleged ties to Palestinian terrorism.

According to a press release from The Lawfare Project, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKFI) informed PayPal about War on Want’s alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), prompting PayPal to block people from using its platform to provide donations to the War on Want.

In September, both The Lawfare Project and UKFI filed a complaint against the War on Want for it’s alleged ties to the PFLP, as detailed here. The complaint also alleged that War on Want frequently promulgates “false propaganda against Israel that misleads donors and other members of the public, stokes hatred of Israel and Jews, and encourages anti-Semitism.”

“I am pleased that PayPal has responded to the evidence it has now seen regarding War on Want’s alleged association with groups linked to terrorism and has ceased to assist War on Want in obtaining donations,” Caroline Turner, director of UKFI, said in a statement. “I hope that the Charity Commission will now look carefully at War on Want’s activities and associations.”

Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, said in a statement, “PayPal has taken a stand against the use of its platform by groups allegedly connected to terror groups. The Lawfare Project has called on the Charity Commission to follow suit and engage with the detailed complaint we submitted against War on Want.”

Neither PayPal nor the War on Want could be immediately reached for comment.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/world/240698/paypal-stops-providing-services-uk-charity-alleged-ties-terrorism/Up Next

Report: Iran Ramping Up Missile Shipments to Hezbollah

FILE PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani listens during a news conference at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, September 26, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid/File Photo

Iran is ramping up its shipment of missiles to its Shia terror proxy, Hezbollah, according to a new report from Fox News.

The report states that a recent flight from Tehran to Beirut is believed to have provided Hezbollah with a stash of weapons, including a GPS device that converts rockets into precision-guided missiles.

The shipment was provided at one of Hezbollah’s secret sites in Beirut, an issue that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touched upon in his recent United Nations speech. Netanyahu highlighted Hezbollah’s secret weapon caches as evidence that the Shia terror proxy is using Beirut’s civilians as human shields.

Israel has conducted more than 200 strikes in Syria since 2017 targeting Iran’s shipments to Hezbollah, the report states.

Israel intelligence has been worrying that Hezbollah’s growing arsenal of weaponry could lead to a conflict between the two that would be bloodier than the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/israel/240561/report-iran-ramping-missile-shipments-hezbollah/Up Next

New Report Highlights SJP’s Ties to Terror

A new report from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), which has been obtained by the Journal, highlights some of Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) reported ties to Islamic terror groups.

The JCPA report notes that the National SJP organization was established in 2010 by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) at the 2010 World Social Forum; AMP is chaired by Hatem Bazian, who is also the founder of SJP. Bazian has called for an “Intifada” in the United States and has referred to Israel as the “slave master.”

Additionally, at least a couple of AMP’s board leaders have ties to the Holy Land Foundation, an organization that was convicted in 2008 for providing material support to Hamas, the report notes.

Similarly, the USPCN’s founders include people who worked for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was one of the groups listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, according to the report. At their conferences, the USPCN has hosted Raed Salah, who heads the Northern Islamic Movement in Israel, an organization that is affiliated with Hamas.

The 2010 forum was sponsored by the Boycott National Committee; the organization’s ties to terror can be seen here.

National SJP has also provided a platform at their conferences for Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted by an Israeli court for a 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two students, as well as Khader Adnan, a leader of Islamic Jihad, which is designated as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department, per the report.

The report also notes that SJP has been involved in a number of incidents on college campuses throughout the country, including members of UC Irvine’s SJP getting arrested “for violent verbal disruptions of a presentation by Dr. Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States” in 2010, according to the report. Another example of a SJP incident occurred in 2013, when SJP’s Northeastern crashed a Holocaust remembrance event with chants of “Free Free Palestine!”

National SJP is scheduled to host their annual conference at UCLA on Nov. 16-18.

Eight-Year-Old Palestinian Threw Knife at Israeli Soldiers

An 8-year-old Palestinian boy threw a knife at Israeli soldiers on Thursday, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The boy shouted something before throwing the “large knife” toward soldiers at a West Bank community nearby Route 443, the Post reported. The boy escaped to a nearby Palestinian village.

No soldiers were injured from the boy’s stabbing attempt.

Michael Dickson, the executive director of StandWithUs, tweeted that such the stabbing attempt is the result of incitement and indoctrination from the Palestinian Authority:

Today an 8 year old Palestinian boy tried to stab Israeli officers.Think about that for a moment.An 8 year old boy.I accuse the parents, the educational system, the Palestinian Authority leadership, of creating an atmosphere where children are dripfed hate and bred to kill.

I speak on behalf of ALL so-called “Palestinians” when I say, we have been taught violence at a very young age at our schools, on TV, mosques, but now Mahmoud Abbas & PLO/ Fatah are ramping up incitement against not only Jews… but Americans too.

The Post noted that Palestinian media is claiming “that the knife might have been planted on the boy by Israel.” Palestinian Media Watch has a compilation of cartoons from the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper that depict Israeli soldiers planting knives on Palestinian children after killing them.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/israel/239888/eight-year-old-palestinian-threw-knife-israeli-soldiers/Up Next

At Least Three Palestinians Dead in Latest Gaza Riots

Hamas-led riots at the Israel-Gaza border on Friday resulted in at least three Palestinians dead and 124 injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced in a tweet that “10 armed terrorists” breached the border fence, but the IDF stopped them and then launched retaliatory strikes against Hamas:

RIGHT NOW: A mob of approx 20K Gazans are burning tires, throwing bombs and grenades, and attempting to break through the border fence with Israel, which 10 armed terrorists did, until we stopped them. In response, an IDF aircraft carried out two strikes in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/siJKlAq7jG

According to the Times of Israel, one of the Palestinians that breached the fence threw a grenade, but no Israeli soldiers were injured in the riots.

Additionally, Ynet News reported that there were at least seven fires that were ignited from the incendiary balloons that were launched, but they all appear to have been doused out.

Twenty-thousand Palestinians participated in the riot.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweeted a warning to Hamas, who are believed to have been escalating the riots as talks of a long-term ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas have deteriorated.

“We got through the High Holy Days just as we had planned, without a war erupting and while exacting a heavy price from the rioters on the Gaza border,” Lieberman wrote. “But the holidays are now behind us, and I tell the heads of Hamas: ‘Take that into account.'”

Hamas responded by saying, “These are empty words against the Palestinian will to break the blockade on Gaza. The March of Return will intensify. Our people pay no attention to this broken record of the Zionist leadership”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/israel/239881/least-three-palestinians-dead-latest-gaza-riots/Up Next

State Department: Iran Still Harbors Al-Qaeda Terrorists

FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/File Photo/File Photo

The State Department noted in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism (CRT) report that Iran is continuing to harbor senior al-Qaeda terrorists and serve as a “core facilitation pipeline” for the terror group’s activities.

The CRT report’s section on Iran mentions this in the section’s concluding paragraph:

Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) members residing in Iran and has refused to publicly identify the members in its custody. Iran has allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran since at least 2009, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria.

According to the Foundation for Defense Democracies’ Long War Journal, several Treasury and State Department reports have said similar things about al-Qaeda and Iran, dating as far back as 2008. But as the Journal has reported, al-Qaeda and Iran’s relationship dates as far as back as 1991, when Iran offered to provide al-Qaeda with as much weaponry, funding and training as it needs.

The Journal also reported, “Iran allowed the 9/11 terrorists to slip through its country and into the United States before the deadly terror attack occurred.”

Long War Journal has described the Iran-al-Qaeda relationship as “curious”:

The two sides have openly fought one another in Syria and Yemen. Iran also detained a number of al Qaeda leaders and family members for years after the 9/11 attacks. This led al Qaeda to agitate for their release. Al Qaeda considers the expansion of Iranian influence throughout the Middle East to be pernicious. And al Qaeda’s leaders regularly frame their Sunni jihad as a counterweight to Iran’s Shiite designs.

Still, unlike the Islamic State, al Qaeda has not conducted a direct terrorist attack inside Iran, as this would cause problems for its facilitators. According to the US government, these same operatives have managed al Qaeda’s “core pipeline” inside Iran for years.

The CRT report also notes that Iran is funding Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Trump administration has been cracking on down on the Iranian regime of late with sanctions that are causing Iran’s crude oil exports to severely decline.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/239212/state-department-iran-still-harbors-al-qaeda-terrorists/Up Next

Netanyahu Warns Hezbollah Will Receive a ‘Crushing Blow’ If They Confront Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks out a train window as he participates in a test-run of the new high-speed train between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, near Lod, Israel September 20, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that Israel will crush the terror group if they dare use their missiles against the Jewish state.

Nasrallah said in a Wednesday speech that Israel’s airstrikes in Syria to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining missiles had failed, as the terror group “possesses precision missiles and non-precision and weapons capabilities.”

“If Israel imposes a war on Lebanon, Israel will face a destiny and reality it didn’t expect any day,” Nasrallah said.

Netanyahu responded to Nasrallah on Thursday that those words are “coming from the same man who, after 2006, said that if he knew what the Israeli response would have been to the kidnapping of three of our soldiers, he would have thought twice whether to do it.”

“Today I recommend he think not twice, but 20 times,” Netanyahu said. “Because if he confronts us, he will receive a crushing blow he can’t even imagine.”

Hezbollah’s current missile arsenal is at approximately 130,000, a marked increase from the 15,000 they had during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

United States to Shut Down PLO’s D.C. Office

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that they would be shutting down the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s office in Washington, D.C., the latest in a series of steps taken by the administration to crack down on the Palestinian Authority.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said they were making this move because “ the PLO has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

“To the contrary, PLO leadership has condemned a US peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the US government with respect to peace efforts and otherwise,” Nauert said. “As such, and reflecting congressional concerns, the administration has decided that the PLO office in Washington will close at this point.”

“Israel supports these actions that are meant to make it clear to the Palestinians that refusing to negotiate and attacking Israel in international forums will not bring about peace,” Netanyahu said.

According to the Times of Israel, Abbas is furious with the decision and will say “some very undiplomatic things” against Trump at the United Nations General Assembly.

Palestinian Authority officials told Israel’s Channel 10 that Trump is “an enemy of the Palestinian people and an enemy of peace.”

“The American president is encouraging terror and extremism with his policies that could lead to violence in the region, which will explode in the faces of Israel and the US,” the officials said.

According to Jewish Virtual Library, the PLO was initially formed in 1964 with the stated goal of the destruction of Israel and Zionism through violent means. The group has committed numerous acts of terror, including the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985. The terrorists murdered a Jewish man, Leon Klinghoffer, who was confined to a wheelchair during the hijacking.

Even though the PLO renounced terrorism in 1993, former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat incited intifadas against Israelis, as has Abbas, Arafat’s successor.

https://jewishjournal.com/online/238691/united-states-shut-plos-d-c-office/Up Next

Complaint Filed Against UK Charity Over Ties to Terrorism

The Lawfare Project and UK Lawyers for Israel filed a complaint on Wednesday against a British charity over its ties to terrorism and its anti-Israel activism.

The complaint states that the charity, War on Want, bills itself as a social justice organization that works to ameliorate poverty and inequality and fight for human rights, yet it has ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated as a terror group by various Western countries.

The War on Want partners with various NGOs that have ties to the PFLP, such as Addameer, which has many various PFLP members. The War on Want has worked with Addameer in boycotting G4S, which has provided goods and services to Israeli prisons; they have also promoted a campaign advocated for the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons.

Additionally, the War on Want names Al Haq, which says it has been “Defending Human rights in Palestine since 1979,” as a partner of the organization in a booklet; Al Haq’s general director, Shawan Jabarin, is a part of PFLP leadership. Al Haq also champions the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay” policy of paying terrorists and their families to murder Israelis.

The War on Want also partners with the Palestinian BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] Committee, an umbrella organization for various entities with ties to a myriad of a Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, the PFLP and Islamic Jihad.

The complaint also argues that War on Want’s frequent activism against Israel through its promotion of the BDS movement – such as its campaign for Israeli Apartheid Week at British universities – is political activism with no connection to its stated charitable goals, noting that poverty in Gaza and the West Bank has improved “since Israel imposed various controls following Gaza’s takeover by the Hamas terrorist organization.”

The last point mentioned in the complaint is that the War on Want disseminates “misleading” information on the Israel/Palestinian complaint, including false statements about Israeli prisons being mired in “poor conditions” and referring to Palestinian terrorists as “political prisoners.”

“War on Want produces and disseminates false propaganda against Israel that misleads donors and other members of the public, stokes hatred of Israel and Jews, and encourages anti-Semitism, contrary to the public benefit,” the complaint concludes.

According to NGO Monitor, the War on Want faced a complaint from Jewish Human Rights Watch in 2016 due to its ties to terror and anti-Israel activism “that has no bearings on the object of charity.” The War on Want has frequently accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes” and advocates for Britain to cease arm sales to Israel.

https://jewishjournal.com/online/238400/complaint-filed-uk-charity-ties-terrorism/Up Next

Corbyn’s Danger: Coddling of Terrorists, Not Only Anti-Semites

Not a day goes by without headlines in the British media that detail the scourge of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. But a deeper look at the behavior of the party’s controversial leader reveals an even more severe problem, one that would shake to its core the country’s bilateral relations with the United States – as well as the war on terrorism.

Extreme left-winger Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Labour leader in September 2015. Half a year later, the first significant accusations of anti-Semitism in the party surfaced when Alex Chalmers, co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC), resigned because club members made anti-Semitic remarks. It also became widely known that Corbyn had, in earlier years, been a frequent supporter of terrorists and terrorism movements. Furthermore, he supported and associated with Holocaust distorters, includingPaul Eisen, also an extreme anti-Israel inciter.

Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) limited publication to the summary of OULC anti-Semitism investigator Baroness Royal’s report. Additional disclosures about anti-Semitic remarks by elected representatives led Corbyn to appoint an investigator, Shami Chakrabarti, who was unfamiliar with the issue.Her report, published on June 30, 2016, was unfocused and superficial. Soon, word got out that Corbyn had offered Chakrabarti a membership in the House of Lords. She then became Baroness Chakrabarti.

The conflict intensified when the NEC recently accepted a diluted version of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition (IHRA) of anti-Semitism. The latter is commonly subject to discussion before approval. These expressions of institutionalized anti-Semitism are odious and threatening to British Jewry, but it is Corbyn’s long-term embrace of terrorists that should concern all democratic leaders and anyone committed to Western values.

Corbyn’s public friendship with terrorists –mainly Arab but also of the Irish Republican Army – dates back decades. In 2009, he invited members of Hamas and Hezbollah to the House of Commons and called them “his friends.” On another occasion, Corbyn called Hamas “his brothers.” In November 2012, he hosted a meeting in parliament with Musa Abu Maria, a member of banned terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

TheDaily Mail recently exposed that, in 2014, Corbyn stood with a wreath next to the graves of several perpetrators of the Black September murders, which claimed 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. He also once shared a platform with Black September terrorist and hijacker Leila Khaled.

It is also settled fact that terrorist supporters were among important financiers of his 2015 election campaign to become Labour leader. These includedDr. Ibrahim Hamami, a columnist for an official Hamas journal. Dr. Hamami gave Corbyn £2000.

Tedd Honderich, a retired professor at London’s University College, contributed £5000 to Corbyn’s campaign. This academic has publicly stated thatPalestinians have a moral right to blow up Jews. He even encouraged them to do so by saying, “to claim a moral right on behalf of the Palestinians on their terrorism is to say that they are right to engage in it, that it is permissible if not obligatory.”Honderich has repeated such statements frequently.

According to Electoral Commission returns, previous donations to Mr. Corbyn included a gift of £2,821 fromInterpal, a British charity that the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization, in 2013, due to its alleged ties to Hamas. Adonation of £1,300 to Corbyn came from the Palestinian Return Centre. This organization has, in the past, faced accusations of being “Hamas’s organisational branch in Europe.”

Meanwhile, as the United States and many other Western governments are battling international and domestic terrorism mainly from Muslim perpetrators, the governing Conservative British government has great difficulty in developing a viable policy in the Brexit negotiations with the European Union. As a result, Labour has a realistic chance to win the next parliamentary elections that could take place earlier than the scheduled date in 2022. A Corbyn-led U.K. could present the introduction of a big Trojan horse into their own ranks.

British Jewry cannot afford to suffer the normalization of anti-Semitism in a government charged with protecting all of its citizens, and the world cannot afford to lose one of the strongest and most stalwart fighters of terrorism. The time has come for the U.S. to voice strong disapproval of a major party leader who is manifestly unfit to lead a great democracy. And to those people of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland who support Labour, we have one message: You are better than this.

Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian girl who has made headlines after being imprisoned for eight months for slapping an Israeli soldier, said she is “proud” of being praised by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

A clip from Lebanese television and translated by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) begins with Nasrallah saying that Tamimi was “brave and courageous.”

“This is a girl that confronts Israeli soldiers and slaps them,” Nasrallah said before a crowd.

The clip then turns to Tamimi, who called Nasrallah “honorable” and thanked him for his support.

“His words boosted our morale – not just my morale but the morale of many people, because I represent the people,” Tamimi said, adding that Nasrallah’s words provided “support of the entire Palestinian people.”

Tamimi then said she “salutes” Nasrallah.

“We all support him and are proud of him,” Tamimi said.

Nasrallah has a record of anti-Semitic invectives, which includes him saying, “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew.” He has also said, “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

According to Jewish Virtual Library, Nasrallah has taken Hezbollah into “a more extremist line against Israel and the US” since he took over the terror group in 1991, pointing to his decision to have Hezbollah kidnap Israeli soldiers and then launch rockets into Israel in 2006, which resulted in the Second Israel-Lebanon War.

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights invented the aforementioned pro-Palestinian slogan; standing next to Booker on his left is Leah Muskin-Pirret, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ government associate.

“He didn’t have time to read the sign, and from his cursory glance he thought it was talking about Mexico and didn’t realize it had anything to do with Israel,” Giertz said. “He hopes for a day when there will be no need for security barriers in the State of Israel, but while active terrorist organizations threaten the safety of the people living in Israel, security barriers are unfortunate but necessary to protect human lives.”

Booker has previously spoken at pro-Israel groups, however his support for the Iran nuclear deal and his vote against the Taylor Force Act in 2017 have put him at odds with some in the pro-Israel community.

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, according to a Tablet exposé, is the “American umbrella group of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement” and has funneled its money toward Islamic terror groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights has also celebrated convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh:

The Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) NGO has been accused of spending their money on propaganda that supports terror organization in a complaint filed by The Lawfare Project and UK Lawyers for Israel.

In a statement released on June 7, The Lawfare Project stated that their complaint alleges that MAP has ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization and promotes anti-Semitic content, including a video of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and a play called “The Seven Children,” which has been accused as anti-Semitic for its portrayal of Israelis as uncaring toward the suffering of Palestinians.

“Medical Aid for Palestinians is advertised as a charity involved in the provision of health care. MAP is also involved with NGOs linked to a terrorist organization, the PFLP, designated as such by the UK government among others,” The Lawfare Project’s Brooke Goldstein said in the statement. “The complaint asks the Charity Commission to take appropriate steps to conduct a review of the organization and ensure its work is limited to lawful activities for the public benefit.”

“This appalling smear appears to be part of a wider pattern of attacks on legitimate NGOs,” the spokesman said. “Should the Charity Commission raise points with us, we would be pleased to respond.”

According to NGO Monitor, MAP has partnered with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and from 2013-2014 had Dr. Majer Nasser, who has links to the PFLP, as their Director of Programs in the West Bank. NGO Monitor’s report on MAP accuses the organization of using “highly biased and politicized language, accusing Israel of ‘indiscriminate attacks’ and ‘collective punishment’ against the Palestinian population while alleging that Israeli defensive measures are ‘arbitrary.’”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/world/234914/medical-aid-palestinians-ngo-accused-supporting-terrorism-complaint/Up Next

Report: BDS Has Ties to Terror Groups

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) ties to terrorism have officially been exposed in a June 1 report from Tablet.

The report explains that The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which is “the American umbrella group of the BDS movement,” funneled tax-exempt donations to the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which has funded and worked with terror groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Under the legal name of the Education for Just Peace in the Middle East, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights used its “fiscal sponsorship” of BNC “to temporarily extend their privileges as a nonprofit” to that organization.

“The BNC is located far from U.S. soil, and it is unclear that the US Campaign has much say on how the money collected on behalf of its Palestinian sponsoree will be spent,” the report states. “There is no indication that any of the money raised through the fiscal sponsorship is going to terror groups, nor is there any clear way of ascertaining how the money collected is spent. All that is clear is that there’s a financial relationship between these two separate groups.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper issued a statement on the June 1 report that read, “Any person of faith who endorses the anti-Semitic BDS movement should now realize that they are also supporting the goals of its sponsors, among them people with the blood of more than 1,000 Israelis and tourists on their hands,” Hier and Cooper said. “The hypocrisy of BDS has always been obvious, but now it’s official.”

StandWithUs also issued a statement on June 1 noting that one of the key members for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ is American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an organization that is connected to Hamas.

“USCPR has always deceptively marketed itself as a human rights group, while relentlessly promoting campaigns of hate across the United States,” Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, said in the statement. “Lawmakers, community leaders, and the general public need to be aware of how toxic this organization truly is.”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/234734/report-bds-ties-terror-groups/Up Next

Signs of Anti-Semitism at Florida State

Indications of anti-Semitism at Florida State University (FSU), originating in its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, have been uncovered, according to a new report by the pro-Israel watchdog organization Canary Mission.

According to the report, 36 percent of social media posts of FSU SJP members “were endorsements or promotion of terror as well as calls for intifada and violence against Jews.”

As examples, the report cited that SJP has issued several posts in support of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorists Rasmea Odeh and Leila Khaled, referring to the former as a “freedom fighter” and a “Rosa Parks” figure. Odeh had been convicted by an Israeli military court of being behind a 1969 bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket that resulted in the deaths of two Hebrew University students.

The report also noted that SJP posted a photo of a quote from Khaled in support of International Women’s Day in March 2017. Khaled took part in two airplane hijackings in 1969 and 1970 as a member of the PFLP.

Additionally, the report highlighted SJP’s frequent defense of Palestinians who attempted to attack Israeli soldiers with knives during the November 2015 intifada.

“Brutal military occupation uses violence to quell peaceful resistance,” SJP wrote at the time. “And we wonder why resistance turns to armed struggle? To knives?”

One of the SJP students highlighted in the report was Albert Kishek, the former co-president of the chapter who once tweeted, “long live hzballah,” a reference to Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah. Another SJP student was Betty Kishek, who tweeted in June 2013, “Facebook and Yahood – the cause of all the worlds problems.” Yahood is Arabic for Jews.

One SJP activist, Yousef Mohamed, tweeted in 2013, “Where do black Jews sit? Wait for it…IN THE BACK OF THE OVEN.” Another, Reem Zaiton, tweeted in November 2016 that she wanted to “f– up a Zionist,” per the report

White House Urges Qatar to End Support of Iran’s Terror Proxies

President Donald Trump meets with the Emir of Qatar during their bilateral meeting, Sunday, May 21, 2017, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The Trump administration reportedly urged Qatar on May 12 to cease supporting Iran’s terror proxies after email unveiled ties between the two.

The Telegraph is reporting that they have seen emails between Qatari officials and the likes of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian Quds Force leader Qasem Solemani as being warm. Included in these emails are ransom payments from Qatar to Shia militias in Iraq to release members of Qatar’s royal family.

“What these emails show is that a number of senior Qatari government officials have developed cordial relations with senior figures in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as a number of Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations,” a senior US security official told the Telegraph. “At a time when the US government is trying to persuade Iran to end its support for terror groups in the Middle East, we do not believe it is helpful that Qatar continues to have ties with such organizations.”

The emails reflect the growing ties between Iran and Qatar, driven by trade relations as Qatar’s relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have soured.

The Trump administration calling for Qatar to end such ties is among their latest efforts to put economic pressure on the regime in Tehran after President Trump announced the United States’ exit from the Iran nuclear deal. On May 15, the administration announced that they would be slapping Iran’s central bank with sanctions for being used as a vehicle to funnel funds between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah.

“It is appalling, but not surprising, that Iran’s senior-most banking official would conspire with the IRGC-QF to facilitate funding of terror groups like Hezbollah, and it undermines any credibility he could claim in protecting the integrity of the institution as a central bank governor,” Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said in a statement. “The United States will not permit Iran’s increasingly brazen abuse of the international financial system. The global community must remain vigilant against Iran’s deceptive efforts to provide financial support to its terrorist proxies.”

If the Trump administration can find a way to end Qatar’s funding of Iran’s terror proxies as well as its ties with Iran in general, it would help them in cracking down on Iran’s financial support of terrorism.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/234127/white-house-urges-qatar-end-support-irans-terror-proxies/Up Next

Taylor Force Act Signed Into Law As Part of Spending Bill

The Taylor Force Act was signed into law on Mar. 23, as it was included in the $1.3 trillion spending bill to fund the government.

President Trump officially signed the spending bill in a signing ceremony, stating that while he had multiple reservations about the overall bill, it needed to be signed for the defense spending.

When the bill passed the Senate on Mar. 22, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the authors of the Taylor Force Act, hailed the law as “one of the most significant pieces of legislation I’ve been involved with.”

“The powerful message from the Force family, along with effort from the pro-Israel community led by Sander Gerber, have made this possible,” Graham said.

The Taylor Force Act, named after the United States veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in March 2016, ends funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until they stop providing financial incentives for Palestinian to commit acts of terror against Jews.

“The Taylor Force Act was made possible in part due to the work of two of the IAC’s biggest supporters — Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson – representing both sides of the aisle to promote this important legislation,” the Israeli-American Coalition (IAC) for Action said in a statement. “Despite their political differences on some other issues, Mr. Saban and Mr. Adelson worked hand-in-hand to promote broad bipartisan support for this bill and prevent American taxpayer dollars from continuing to subsidize terror.”

Additionally, AIPAC lauded the bill for giving $3.1 billion to Israel for security assistance, $705.8 million for “missile defense cooperation” between Israel and the U.S. and $47.5 million to help Israel fight against Hamas’ use of tunnels for terror.

As the Journal has previously reported, the PA provided $347 million to Palestinian terrorists and their families in 2017, giving them well beyond what the average Palestinian earns per month if they murder Jews. The U.S. gave the PA $357 million in 2016.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/232283/taylor-force-act-signed-law-part-spending-bill/Up Next

How Cheap Is Jewish Blood?

This week, The Guardian, one of the most left-wing newspapers in Great Britain, published a 2,300-word piece describing the problem of terrorism in cities across the world. It name-checked London, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Nice, Brussels, and Barcelona; it mentioned Algeria, Italy, Brazil, Kuwait, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Nairobi and Oklahoma City. It mentioned Israel but once — and only in order to mention the Irgun’s bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. As Yair Rosenberg notes, not a single terrorist attack against Israelis made the article.

All of which raises a question: Why is it that whenever Western leaders talk about terrorism, they seem to leave terrorism against Jews off the list?

This isn’t a rarity. It’s regular and it’s predictable. When President Barack Obama spoke about the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, for example, he brushed off the simultaneous attack on a Jewish supermarket as “random” (he later backed down). When President George W. Bush spoke about global terrorism, he rarely mentioned terrorism inside Israel. When the media list terror attacks against Western targets, Jerusalem never earns a mention.

There’s no true excuse for leaving dead Israelis off the list of terror victims.

Why?

There are two possible explanations. Neither is good enough.

First, there are those who claim that terrorism against Israelis is part of a broader political conflict — that such terrorism isn’t religious in nature, but rather a tactic in a territorial war. That’s absolute nonsense. This week, 29-year-old Itamar Ben Gal, a teacher at a yeshiva in Ariel, was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist while waiting by the roadside; he left four children behind. That follows the murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six, in the same area, as he drove along the highway. These are civilian, not military targets. These were family men murdered for no reason other than their Judaism.

And no, this isn’t about settlements. In 2017, Israel saw a wave of terror attacks across Israel; most of those attacks were perpetrated inside so-called Green Line Israel: stabbings on the streets, truck attacks on civilian crowds. The Palestinian leadership celebrates such killings and offers the families of terrorists financial incentives to pursue them. And the Palestinian leadership is clear about the rationale for such killings. That rationale is the same as the al-Qaida rationale or the ISIS rationale: a radical Islamic political viewpoint that sees the slaughter of non-Muslim innocents as a tool in the jihad against the infidel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas isn’t a “moderate” leader seeking peace; he’s a radical who stated openly just weeks ago that “Israel is a colonialist project that has nothing to do with the Jews.”

Then there’s the second explanation for why the world would downplay terrorist attacks against Jews: an anti-Semitic attempt to separate off the Jews from the West. That’s certainly the tendency in Europe, where it’s convenient to view anti-Semitic attacks inside the continent by radical Muslims not as attacks on European citizens but as internecine warfare between two outsider groups. That’s convenient because it allows Europe to treat the rise in anti-Semitic crime as an aberration rather than a serious internal problem. But it also reinforces the lie that Jews cannot be full citizens of the West.

There’s no true excuse for leaving dead Israelis off the list of terror victims. But those who do it don’t need an excuse. They’ll keep on doing it so long as the Jewish community remains silent about the omission. And so long as that omission remains the rule rather than the exception, the West will continue to ignore a basic, simple truth: The Jews of Israel are the canary in the coalmine in radical Islam’s war against the West, not an outlier nation that can be cast aside for political convenience. What starts on the streets of Jerusalem usually finds its way to the streets of London. The non-Israeli West would be smart to recognize that fact, if only to protect itself.

Ben Shapiro is a best-selling author, editor-in-chief at The Daily Wire and host of the podcast “The Ben Shapiro Show.”

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/ben-shapiro/230503/how-cheap-is-jewish-blood/Up Next

The Israeli Way

There is something different about making energy and water policy when 100,000 rockets are pointed at your family.

I went to Israel last month to exchange strategies on water and clean energy. I came home with an entirely new perspective on lawmaking.

In 2014, California and Israel signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on energy and water innovation. The mission of our California delegation to Israel was to put muscle behind the memo with funding and technical expertise.

Just as we were getting started in our clean energy lab at the Milken Innovation Center at the Jerusalem Institute, in a room packed with some of the top energy minds in Israel, a news alert sounded on my phone: “BREAKING: HAMAS TERROR TUNNEL EGYPT-ISRAEL DESTROYED.”

Israel Defense Forces had struck a tunnel only a short distance away by California standards. The news shook me silent. My mind went blank. I looked around the room for guidance.

This is what Israel does, day after day. No paralysis. It just moves forward.

The Israelis at the conference didn’t skip a beat. People looked down at their phones for a moment. Nodded. And dived right back into the work at hand.

Every conversation in Israel is under the Iron Dome. In the fierce urgency that necessarily, although quietly, weaves itself into the texture of daily life, of relationships, of governing, one cannot help but be humbled by Israel’s fortitude.

Where did this strength come from? I would submit that its origins are ancient. And that it lives in all Jews. As the Midrash relates, when the Jews made the Exodus from Egypt, their faith was shaken at the shores of the Red Sea, where they were trapped like sitting ducks, bracing for the oncoming Egyptian army, with no water and a range of bad options.

As some Jews attempted to micromanage Moses, one group suggested they turn and fight. Another thought to simply surrender and return to slavery. A third argued that ending it all would be more just, and they should just hurl themselves into the sea and die. And a fourth disagreed with all the others; the answer to their quandary was to pray for salvation from God.

Moses rose above his stutter, as he did in these moments, to deliver to the Jews a message from God: Let’s just go through the sea, faithful, unafraid, eyes on Mount Sinai. Rather than anticipate, plan or resist the seemingly impossible challenge ahead, the Jews just went through it.

This is what Israel does, day after day, no matter how many tunnels are discovered or rockets are stockpiled. No paralysis. It just moves forward.

And move forward we must. Energy and water are not just critical environmental challenges. They impact the security of Israel and California, and our respective states’ abilities to compete economically on a global stage, where self-reliance and sustainability are rewarded. Israel’s energy strategy currently relies heavily on fossil fuels — only 2 percent of its grid is renewable.

California, on the other hand, has a cleaner grid but a sea to cross when it comes to water. Israelis capture and recycle about 85 percent of the water they use. California wastes about 85 percent of all stormwater, failing, unlike Israel, to capture this valuable resource before it dumps into our coastal waters.

Israel is a nation at constant risk. Yet, Israel’s leaders find a way to diligently proceed with the work to modernize their nation.

Our joint efforts to secure a cleaner, more sustainable energy and water future for Israel and California must proceed, with California imagination and market power, and that deep fortitude that is ancient in origin, and alive and well in Israel today.

State Sen. Henry Stern (D-Canoga Park) is an environmental attorney and educator. He represents the 27th District, which includes parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Al-Ahmad’s declaration comes after Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he would end funding to the PA if they refused to engage in the peace process:

…peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?

According to Palestinian Media Watch, Al-Ahmad has served on the Fatah Central Committee since 2009. Back in October, Al-Ahmad called the Balfour Declaration “a historical mistake.”

“The Palestinian people, which is standing firm in the occupied homeland and outside of it, expects you to stand alongside it in its ongoing struggle – since the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) from British Foreign Secretary [Arthur Balfour] 100 years ago – for its freedom and the achievement of its national rights like the rest of the peoples of the world,” said Al-Ahmad. “We hope that Britain will correct its historical mistake against our people.”

Al-Ahmad has also called for violence against Israel in October.

“It is the Palestinian people’s right to wage the struggle against the occupation using all the methods, but there should be a consensus on its form,” said Al-Ahmad. “We have not eliminated any method from our considerations, nor from our principles since the [Fatah] Launch [in 1965] until today: Popular resistance, armed struggle, and negotiations. If violence breaks out again, Israel will be responsible for it.”

The PA paid terrorists and their families $355 million, providing a major financial incentive for Palestinians to commit acts of violence against Jews. At the beginning of December, the House of Representatives passed the Taylor Force Act, which states that funding to the PA will end if they continue to fund terrorists. The White House has signaled that the president will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/israel/229420/fatah-central-committee-member-pa-will-continue-fund-terrorists/Up Next

Trump Admin Cuts Funding to Pakistan

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican members of the Senate about immigration at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 4, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Trump administration officially cut funding to Pakistan on Thursday, stating the funding would cease until Pakistan begins effectively cracking down on terrorism.

According to NBC News, the administration is withholding “hundreds of millions of dollars” in funding to Pakistan that would have gone toward their efforts in fighting terrorism.

“Until the Pakistani government takes decisive action against groups including the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network, we consider them to be destabilizing the region and also targeting U.S. personnel,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told NBC News. “Despite a sustained high level of engagement by this administration with the government of Pakistan, the Taliban and the Haqqani network continue to find sanctuary in Pakistan.”

The move comes after Trump tweeted on Monday that the U.S. was wasting money on Pakistan:

The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!

Pakistan responded to Trump’s tweet with a statement from their National Security Committee that read, “Recent statements and articulation by the American leadership were completely incomprehensible as they contradicted facts manifestly, struck with great insensitivity at the trust between two nations built over generations, and negated the decades of sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation.”

Pakistan’s central bank also announced that the country would be switching from the dollar to the yuan.

Islamic terror groups like the Taliban, Haqqani network and al-Qaeda have been embedded in Pakistan for years. Pakistan’s country has had trouble clamping down on terrorism and has long faced allegations of harboring terrorism. It has also been alleged that Pakistan uses the Haqqani network “as a strategic hedge against India and Afghanistan,” according to the Council of Foreign Relations.

According to Human Rights Watch, Pakistan has 19 people on death row for violating blasphemy laws and recently passed laws that allows the government to engage in online censorship. The government has also failed to crack down on child marriage and honor killings.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/229367/trump-admin-cuts-funding-pakistan/Up Next

Trump Signals He’ll End Aid to Palestinians If They Don’t Agree to Peace Talks

FBI Arrests Man Who Planned Terror Attack In S.F.

The FBI announced on Friday that they arrested a man who was plotting to launch a terror attack in San Francisco, although he was starting to have reservations about it.

The man, 26-year-old Everitt Aaron Jameson of Modesto, CA, had told am FBI informant that he was hoping to launch an attack on Christmas Day at Pier 39 because he “knew it was a heavily crowded area.” He also said that “he was ready to die.”

His plan involved detonating explosives on the pier, followed by the spraying of bullets toward civilians as they fled the area.

Jameson converted to Islam a couple of years ago and his social media accounts suggest that he was an ISIS sympathizer. In his suicide note, Jameson claimed that no one in America was innocent.

“You’ve allowed Donald J Trump to give away Al Quds to the Jews,” wrote Jameson. “Both You and he are wrong, it belongs to the Muslemeen. We have penetrated and infiltrated your disgusting country. These Acts will continue until the Lions of Islam overtake you.”

He concluded his note by stating, “Long live Isil, Long Live Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Allahu Akbar!”

Jameson had also expressed support for the recent terror attack in Manhattan as well as the attack in San Bernardino in 2015 to an FBI informant; he wanted to launch an attack similar to both of those attacks.

“I’m glad to know we Muslims are finally hitting back,” Jameson told the informant. “Allahu Akbar! The Kuffar deserve everything and more the lives they have taken.”

However, on Monday Jameson told the informant that he wasn’t sure he could go through with the attack. On Wednesday, the FBI conducted a raid of Jameson’s home and found a stockpile of weapons as well as the suicide note. Jameson admitted to the plan and that he would be thrilled to see someone conduct it at some point.

Jameson is a former Marine sharpshooter who was discharged for not disclosing his asthma condition. He had been working as a tow truck driver.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/229077/fbi-arrests-man-planned-terror-attack-s-f/Up Next

USC Professor Suggests That Israeli Zionists Are Terrorists

A professor at the University of Southern California (USC) suggested in an October lecture that Israeli Zionists are terrorists.

International Studies Professor David Kang gave a presentation on terrorism on October 26 in front of 200 students in the International Relations 210 class. One of the slides was titled “Who are terrorists?”and listed “Israeli Zionists” along with Kim Jong-Il and Mao Zedong below it:

Another slide featured a quote from Hamas’ spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin stating, “We are not ready to move our struggle outside the occupied Palestinian land. We are not prepared to open international fronts, however much we criticize the unfair American position.”

Another slide quoted Osama bin Laden as stating that his goal was to stop the U.S. from “occupying the lands of Islam” that terrorism stems from poverty and another suggested that U.S. foreign policy and poverty are the roots of terrorism.

One of the students who was in the class, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Journal that he was disturbed by the slides, especially since they seemed to be “legitimizing” Hamas and gave the impression that Israeli Zionists should be associated with the likes of Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Il.

“He didn’t really talk about the issue any further, which… I think is the problem here,” the student said.

The student added, “I know other people who were a little disturbed to hear that, people who had taken his class who were just confused.”

Roz Rothstein, the international director of StandWithUs, criticized Kang’s PowerPoint presentation in a written statement to the Journal.

“USC Professor David Kang dehumanized all Israelis, Jews and others who believe in Israel’s right to exist during his lecture this past October,” wrote Rothstein. “His generalization that ‘Israeli Zionists’ are terrorists is simply hate speech, which has the potential to create a hostile learning environment for Israelis and others who attend USC. It is also an abuse of his role as an educator, who is supposed to uphold academic integrity and help students think critically about the world.”

Rothstein added, “This is especially unacceptable given his position of power as a professor, given that students may risk getting lower grades by challenging him. USC should condemn Kang and adopt a policy similar to the UC Regents Principles Against Intolerance, to make clear that anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry have no place on campus. StandWithUs will continue to be there for students who experience this kind of hate from professors and others.”

In a statement sent to the Journal, Kang claimed that the slide was part of an exercise.

“I was not labeling any group as terrorists, only making the point that these groups have been called terrorist organizations by others,” said Kang. “The point of the exercise was to get students to think about how and why organizations are labeled as terrorist organizations, and to foster a discussion about who does the labeling and for what purpose.”

However, the anonymous student remembers it differently.

“His class was critical thinking based but in this case he did not make that clear when presenting the slide nor gave any explanation to the historical context as to why Zionists would be a labeled a ‘terrorist’ organization,” the student wrote in a text message to the Journal, “and there were likely many impressionable students in the class who aren’t familiar with the issue who could now associate Zionism with North Korea and Al Qaeda, etc.”

Kang’s rating on RateMyProfessor is a 4.3 out of 5; various reviews on the site praised him for his lecturing skills and the depth of his knowledge. He is known for his expertise on North and South Korea.

The anonymous student described the class as “a good introductory class” overall, but those slides were “one of the only things that bothered” the student about the class.

“I thought he was so rational,” the student lamented, which made Kang’s slides all the more confusing for him.

This article has been updated.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/229027/usc-professor-suggests-israeli-zionists-terrorists/Up Next